


degree of seperation

by FireFlashMoon



Series: dust motes [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Loss of Control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-11-02 10:10:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20710274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireFlashMoon/pseuds/FireFlashMoon
Summary: Daemons and humans need to stay close, but some things like to pull them apart.A young Jonathan Sims learns this the hard way.





	degree of seperation

The fear of separation was one that almost everyone had felt in their lives.

To have your very soul torn away, young or old, it sent a shiver down the spine. But it wasn't solely the fear of death that made separation so horrifying, no. It was the loss of the soul. Of the eternal companion. Of your very self. Was there anything more lonely than to be without your soul? This deep worry permeated every soul and was the reason dæmons kept close to their humans, so neither accident nor attack could destroy the bond between them.

But like many eight year olds, Jon was not preoccupied with a fear that he could be separated from his soul.

He was too busy reading.

Neith, his dæmon, who was currently perched on his shoulder as a chaffinch, was close to him and nothing was going to take her away. The two of them were in their room, reading the newest of the books their grandmother had bought them, although Neith's interest had waned considerably over the last few hours and was now fidgeting, much to Jon's annoyance.

"Neith, can you please stop," He grumbled to her, shielding his ear from the fluttering of her wings against it. The dæmon shifted into a cat, climbing down into Jon's lap with a heavy sigh.

"But this book is so _boring_ Jon, can't we read something else?" She whined, rolling on her back and batting at the book's spine. "I think I saw one that looked good in the new pile somewhere." Jon sighed, then shut the book and dropped it to the bed. Neith was just saying what he'd been thinking; the book - some government thriller or something - had seemed interesting at first, but had soon become tedious and there were still many books in their current pile to look at that were actually interesting.

Neith jumped from the bed onto the bedside table and nudged the pile towards Jon, who picked up the top book, frowned, then shook his head and dropped it with the other discarded books. This continued until finally Jon's fingers brushed over a thin large book. He scowled down at it as Neith gave an annoyed hiss.

Another children's picture book.

He tried not to feel insulted but there was still a twist of anger deep in his stomach. Stamping it down, he looked at the book's cover.

Neith was still going through the pile, pushing aside boring looking books to search for the one she'd seen, but paused when she didn't hear the picture book join the pile. She turned around, giving Jon a questioning look.

"Jon...?" Jon didn't look at her though. His gaze was fixed on the book's cover. Neith huffed at being ignored, then shifted into a grey squirrel and clambered up to the crown of his head to look at the front of the book. _A Guest for Mr Spider_ announced the cover in scratchy, unpleasant looking font, like it had been carved into the book's surface rather than written. Jon turned the book over and the two of them saw the bloated, horrifying drawing of what must be Mr Spider on the back, it's mismatched eyes seeming to stare at them from the cover. Neith shivered, shrinking even smaller into a tiny dormouse and hiding behind his messy hair.

"Jon, I-I don't like this book, let's look for another one, yeah?" Jon made a noise as if agreeing but didn't look away, turning back to the front. Then he opened the book. Nothing happened. But that didn't stop the spike of fear that lanced through Neith as Jon turned the first page - only a bookplate, stating that the book belonged to the library of some person called Jurgen Leitner - and started reading the book proper. She shifted back into a cat, a calico this time, and kneaded his leg, trying to get his attention. "Jon, come on please, let's do something else." She looked at his face, the usual intent look of concentration replaced by a slack look that raised her hackles.

"It's ok Neith," he said, distractedly, not looking at her.

"Jon, please stop read-" She didn't get a chance to finish.

Jon lurched to his feet, as if yanked upwards by some invisible line. Then, eyes still glued to the book, he began to walk. It was juddering and jerky and _wrong_. Neith hissed in fright and ran after him as he made his way down the stairs and past the living room, where their grandmother and her large eagle dæmon were asleep. Neith stopped at the doorway even as Jon lurched forward.

"Jon stop! We're not supposed to go out! Or we’ll really get in trouble this time! Come back!"

But Jon made no sign of having heard her, continuing his unsettling march forward, eyes still fixed to the pages with their horrible drawings. He also didn't stop when the sharp pain from separation began. Not when it became stronger and stronger until Neith dropped her stand at the front door, running to catch up to Jon and reduce the tearing agony of being pulled away that Jon was somehow ignoring.

She'd felt this pain, when they'd played at being a witch in the past, trying to see how far they could go apart and trying to fly using a branch they'd decided was cloud-pine, though then it had been much weaker than this. But even when she shifted into a starling and alighted on his arm, the tearing pain didn't vanish as it should've. It was still there - less extreme than before with no distance between them - but it still ripped deep inside her, like all that she was made of was being torn at. When they'd felt that sharp tugging and the creeping anguish before, their reunion had quickly dispelled it. It didn't make sense.

She didn't understand why it was happening but knew two things - the horrible little book was causing this, and, if she didn't drag Jon away from book before he finished it, they would die.

Or worse, she thought in horror, glancing at the drawings again before tearing away her eyes, fear that she would also be bewitched cutting through her. Neith pecked at his arms and scratched and shifted into a gerbil and nipped him and became a hedgehog and prickled him but no matter what she did, Jon kept reading, slowly turning the pages, mouthing the words, hands shaking slightly all the while.

By the time they reached the park, despair had filled Neith, coiled in her stomach like a lead weight, although she didn't let it stop her trying. Currently as a Red Setter, she had one of Jon's trouser legs in her teeth and was pulling backwards, trying to break his puppet-like gait to no avail. She had tried to pull the book from his hands but it seemed almost glued there and she'd had to change tactics, fearing that she might hurt him if she pulled too hard.

When the boy - was it Thomas? - slapped the book from Jon's hands, she almost cried with relief as Jon stumbled to a stop, confusion writ large on his face. He shoved Jon over and he fell with a cry.

Neith snarled as she shifted into a lion and leaped into Jon’s lap protectively, acting as a barrier between him and the older lad as he jeered at them. Then he noticed the book. He picked it up with a sneer and began mocking them over it as he began to page through it, his terrier dæmon laughing along with him. Neith couldn't work up the usual anger at the insults to their intelligence; all she cared about right now was that the book was no longer in Jon's hands.

But it was in the boy's.

In that moment, the change that had come over Jon seemed to also come over the boy, the daemon's laughter faltering then vanishing altogether as her human began to walk away in that same jerky gait. Neith gave a low whine then turned to Jon, whose gaze was fixed on the retreating back of the bully.

"Jon," Neith whined, grabbing onto a sleeve with small teeth as Jon made his way to his feet, eyes fixed on the retreating back of the bully "Please, let's go home, I'm scared."

"He-he took my book," Jon said with faint indignation, no hint that he'd heard her plea and set off in pursuit. There was nothing seemingly bewitching him this time, but there was a look in his eyes that worried Neith, a drive that again seemed to cloud the pain as he walked further away than their bond allowed. Neith didn't know what would happen if they followed the boy but she knew that if she didn't catch up with Jon now, he could tear himself away from her without even realising it.

They followed him through a few more streets, all gradually empty as the evening started to deepen, until they stood on an empty residential street, watching the older boy walk unsteadily up to a random door. His dæmon was trying in vain to pull at his leg - as Neith had attempted before - yelling at him to pay attention, to stop, but the boy paid her no heed, placing the book flat on the door. Then he knocked twice. She felt Jon flinch with each knock and she pawed at his knee in a comforting manner, but did not take her eyes off the door.

The door opened and it seemed like an eternity passed as those black, spindly arms stretched out of the darkness of the house and encircled the bully, his dæmon shrieking in pain and running backwards. Then the boy vanished into the house, as if he'd never existed. His dæmon gave a short pitiful cry before she crumbled into Dust, golden flecks blown away in seconds.

Jon gave his own strangled cry then, the strange turn that had overtaken him gone, and he dropped to the ground, scooping Neith up and burying his nose into her fur, stifling the choked sob of fear that had finally worked through. For a painful, terrible second Neith felt alien in Jon's arms, like he wasn't her person and she wasn't his dæmon and tensed at the _wrongness_.

But as quickly as it came, it went again. She shifted back into a cat again and nuzzled him back, the pain from the micro tears in their bond starting to fade now they reunited, without the dark, creeping influence of the book affecting them. Neith nosed Jon's forehead with her nose and gave a feline smile which Jon returned with a watery one of his own.

"Come on Jon," Neith whispered to him, exhaustion and relief laced through every word, "Let's go home."

**Author's Note:**

> My first but hopefully not last Magnus Archive fanfic woo!!  
I have a lot more ideas for this au which i hope to write at some point.  
I'm on tumblr at dewdropstar if you want to come yell at me about tma - this series has consumed my life


End file.
